About Me

I'm just me - a solitary wanderer who trekked across much of the world and recently retired to a small farm in the Ozarks.
My checkered past includes time spent as an Army officer, high school teacher and principal, real estate broker, child protection worker and administrator, and social worker with the U.S. military.
Over the years I have resided in a variety of places including Missouri, Virginia, Okinawa, Kansas, Kentucky, and Arizona. I have also traveled to Germany, Mexico, Canada, Russia, Sweden, Great Britain, Belize, Guatemala, Taiwan, Guam, South Korea, Vietnam, and numerous islands in the Caribbean - including Cuba.
I have ridden in a Russian ambulance, hitch-hiked across Moscow late at night, fought an ostrich, celebrated New Year's at a street party in Hanoi, and bicycled across the Caribbean. My travels have taken me to Ground Zero in Hiroshima, the Bolshoi Ballet, China Beach, and the White House kitchen.
The nine things in life that I am most proud of are my children: Nick, Molly, and Tim, and my grandchildren: Boone, Sebastian, Judah, Olive, Willow, and Sullivan.
Life has been very good to me indeed!

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Frank Bill's "Crimes in Southern Indiana"

by Pa RockReader

Life is rough in America’s meth belt, and if you want to
know the just how god-awful it is, then may I recommend a book of short stories
by a sensational writer by the name of Frank Bill.The collection is called Crimes in Southern
Indiana, but sadly those tales could depict the hidden life in many communities
across America – the life most of us fail to observe or acknowledge.

Damn, this guy is a powerful writer!Frank Bill’s stories show us desolate,
dangerous, and despicable places that are populated with some of the strangest,
sickest and sorriest people imaginable.His characters visit taverns in the mornings and dog fights at night.They cook meth, do meth, steal meth, and
sell meth. They maim and murder, take
part in gang rapes, kill children while driving drunk, and sell the occasional
granddaughter into prostitution.And
the scariest part of all is that Frank Bill’s characters are starkly real,
living in the dark alleys and rusted trailers that lie just beyond our
comfortable field of vision.

Every story in this book is a punch in the gut, but my two
favorites are “The Accident” and “The Old Mechanic.”Both deal with PTSD.In the first a man in an elevator tries (or
perhaps he doesn’t) to help a man on the outside whose arm gets stuck in the
door and is ripped off as the elevator rises to the next floor.The other story, “The Old Mechanic,” looks at
the evolution of a World War II vet who suffers deep grief and trauma during
the war before coming home to a wife and two daughters.The girls listen in fear and silence night
after night as dad beats mom senseless.The story advances one generation
to show the same veteran, now a sad and angry old man living alone, as he tries
to get to know his grandson.That man,
the old mechanic, represents a true measure of the cost of war.

And then there are the rotting bodies, rusting cars,
infidelities, tortures, murders, tweakers, lost souls, and more rotting
bodies. Life does not get any more real
than the tales of Frank Bill.